News 07/27/2017 News

Grinding and repaving work on part of Perkins Street. The work in the evening and early morning hours between State Street and Highway 101. The city says the work should not impact the morning or evening commute and that local businesses in the area will be open during construction. The work is to fix trenches for the Electric Department’s Perkins Street Underground Project. The Electric Department and Comcast are done with their work on Perkins but there are wires and poles that need to be taken out by AT&T crews after customers are reconnected to the underground system. The work should be all done by the 1st of October.

About two-dozen marijuana gardens have been raided on some Sherwood Valley tribal land in Willits. The County of Mendocino Marijuana Eradication Team, or COMMET, led the raid with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and ended up arresting six people. They found more than 2,400 plants, more than 700 pounds of processed marijuana in various stages, and eight firearms. There was also water diversion and sediment disruption into the waterways, with those environmental violations, raising what would have been misdemeanor cultivation charges to the felony level. COMMET had reportedly been working on the raid for nearly two months, after the Sherwood Valley tribal chairman brought the issue to the Sheriff.

The Willits City Council is considering water and sewer rate increases due to needed maintenance and higher capital and operations costs. The city council is setting a public hearing on the matter at their regular council meeting next month so staff can research more. The city will have to notify all property owners of record if the rate increases go thru.

The city of Willits is still working on a cannabis ordinance which is set to be introduced to those interested the middle of September. At the last city council meeting this week, the council got an update from the city planner who says they still have to have environmental reviews for the ordinance the city’s considering which will all be released September 13th with possible adoption of the new law by September 27th. It would go into effect a month after that. At that time those interested in opening a marijuana business could apply with the city.

There’s a new name for Mendo Lake Credit Union after its merger with Community First Credit Union. The deal was complete July 1st, so now the credit union is going by the name Community First. There are nearly 51,000 members of the co-op with 126 employees in 10 branches. The branches are in Mendocino, Lake, Napa and Sonoma counties. The Community First CEO is running the newly merged banks from Santa Rosa. Those who were members of Mendo Lake still have access, but with a new checking account which the bank says will earn them money with a debit card swipe. They also have access to 0 percent loans for local agricultural students, second mortgages, in-house technology for remote deposits and deposit rates that nearly double.

A special meeting’s being held on the Ukiah Valley Sanitation District lawsuit by the City Council. The meeting described as “conference with legal counsel”, with the city manager telling the Daily Journal only that it was a closed session. The city manager told the city council last week that city and sanitation district representatives met for a second mediation session about the lawsuits filed by both sides, but didn’t give any nuggets of where they were at in the mediation process. During public comment some community members were asking how the city intended to pay the district, with the city attorney responding saying the lawsuit had not been settled or won. If this continues, there could be a trial next year. As a side note, three board members on the sanitation district are up for re-election in November.

A new plan’s being implemented in Lakeport to bring in more economic development. Lake Co News reports the City Council has unanimously approved its Economic Development Strategic Plan for 2017 thru 2022. The plan was presented to the city council by the Community Development Director. The plan came together with the help of the Lakeport Economic Development Advisory Committee. Apparently the plan was put in place after the end of redevelopment agencies across the state. The director said without the guidelines from the redevelopment agency the city was quote, “sort of floundering” in some of its efforts. The study shows the city’s unemployment rate as opposed to other cities in the state, the median household income and what was coming into the city since the great recession and showed goals for reversing negative trends. You can review the report in its entirety at Lake Co News dot com.

The Pink Patch Project is coming to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. The project to bring awareness to breast cancer is a nationwide effort for law enforcement and public safety agencies. The pink patches for the department were purchased by the Deputy Sheriff’s Association featuring breast cancer awareness ribbons with pink backgrounds. If you’d like to buy one, they’re also available to the public at the National Night Out in Middletown next Tuesday. The sale proceeds go to the Sutter Lakeside Hospital Foundation for the new breast cancer navigator position. That person would talk to patients who get abnormal mammogram results. That position would be held by a cancer survivor. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, uniformed Lake County Sheriff’s Office personnel are allowed to wear the pink patch while on duty.

Goals have been set to improve Mendocino County’s access to Broadband Internet. According to a recent report by UC Berkeley, 39 percent of Mendocino households have download speeds lower than the Public Utilities Commission’s minimum standard and 24 percent had none, putting Mendocino in the bottom 10 of all California counties. The Daily Journal reported the latest info to the Board of Supervisors, with one supervisor pointing out it’s not just a barrier for residents but also businesses, because it hinders operation in a technologically evolving world. Supervisors adopted some goals to establish more reliable telecommunication services, have affordable, high-speed broadband in all homes, improve infrastructure, and develop a countywide comprehensive broadband plan by 2019.

It’s a bumper crop for this year’s California’s Almonds. The harvest hit 1 million acres. The Record News in Stockton reporting we could hit 2.2 billion pounds (1 billion kilograms) this year, a new record. Apparently there’s high demand for Calif. almonds in Asia, making almonds the state’s richest agricultural export, beyond wine grapes and other crops.

A woman from North Carolina says she had no idea she was in a video with illegal material in it, linked to potential crimes in Canada. Samantha Field told CTV News she was hired on the $5 dollar site called Fiverr and helped create a video for a customer to sell creative services, which included a reading from a book the person who hired her had supposedly written and wanted to promote. It showed suspicious packages with cookies and rockets and tissue paper being delivered in Saskatoon. With some who received them thinking they got anthrax. The woman was charged for the suspicious package deliveries after the video was sent to media and there was really no book launch. Field says she charged $35 for the clip and immediately went to police after finding out it the whole thing was phony. She says Crime Stoppers said their lead investigator was on vacation.